


Whisper to the Wildflowers

by LiathLining (ActuallyAMenace)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Jaskier Whump, M/M, Mourning, This made me cry writing it, True Love, but its from a long life and old age, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyAMenace/pseuds/LiathLining
Summary: It's a warm summer day when Jaskier takes his final breath.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 37
Kudos: 163
Collections: these bitches gay! good for them!!





	Whisper to the Wildflowers

**Author's Note:**

> God this hurt to write. I'm a big time lover of all things fluff, so the countless AU's have made my heart happy enough. Someone recently said there wasnt enough content where Jaskier dies of old age/natural causes...So I ripped my heart out and put it here.
> 
> [Find me on Tumblr!](https://liathlining.tumblr.com/)

It happens on the summer solstice, the longest day for more reasons than those of nature. Geralt wakes with the sun, checks with a warm palm and sensitive ears that the frail heart in the body beside him is still fluttering. Its beat is tired and uneven, and just like yesterday (and the day before), Geralt tells himself that it might happen today. He dresses in simple clothes, armor resting unworn and unused beneath the bed, and boils water for tea in their small kitchen. They had taken over a small one roomed cottage in a field of wildflowers in the spring, when the frail bard's nurse had told him “soon.”

Jaskier had laughed when the arrived, chartering a small cart through a favor to get there, finding the ceiling low and doorways comically small for the build of a witcher, but Geralt makes it work. There is a well outside, and a hearth for simple meals, while a glass of wildflowers rests on their worn table, picked by Jaskier when he was more steady on his feet. By the time the tea is done steeping, he hears the grinding of bones and the creaking of joints from the other room and meets Jaskier at his side of the bed.

He had aged well, but when you’re a hair's breadth from a century, there isn’t much you can good. His hair shine's as white as Geralt's, and those eyes still sparkle like a clear spring full of mischievous secrets, crowded by laugh lines that hug his smile.

“A man could get used to this treatment, being met in bed by a handsome man and a cup of tea.”

The Witcher chuckles and gives him a quick kiss before he helps shaking hands bring the cup to still pink lips.

"I always thought it helped me recover when I had one at my sick bed." His voice is a purr, still able to bring a rush of blood to Jaskier's cheeks, who swats at him before stealing another kiss.

They spend the rest of the day on the tiny porch, shaded from the sun by a small overhang, watching the flowers sway and the birds flit here and there. Geralt sits at the bards feet as the other remains content in a simple chair, head in his lap, the feeling of long callousless fingers in his hair stinging somewhere deep within him. How long had It been since he had heard the familiar strum of that ancient lute, been moved by the voice before it was weakened with age. It takes the witcher hours to work out the words hes been chewing on for days.

“You-you dont have to stay for me. I’ll be ok, for you, I will.”

Jaskier has always been selfless, and with the rattle in his lungs, and the wayward beat of his heart, Geralt knows with a fair amount of certainty why his bard is still holding on. He forces himself to look up, to meet those clear blue eyes now shining with wetness. There's nothing but their breath and the buzz of bees in the distance, a shaking hand moving a strand of hair from his vision.

“Teach me not to be scared.”

They talk the rest of the afternoon, about everything and nothing, about those who have been lost to time or the unknown. Of their love. So when the sun begins to set, Geralt cradles the near weightless body in his arms and brings his love to their bed, holds him close, and sings. It is a deep rumble, he can feel it, feel the emotion cut his throat like sharp stone. He sings of song birds and wolves and the sun, and he only stops to return the whispered “I love you” with his own, pressing his forehead to Jaskier's.

Jaskier's heart stops as the sun disappears beyond the horizon, his prone figure washed in color from the open window. Geralt knows it’s coming, but the grief hits him harder than any creature he’s ever battled. He screams until he collapses over that too thin chest, great body heaving with agony as long suppressed emotion rips through him.

He keeps watch at his bedside until the moon is at its highest. There, he takes the dust covered lute from it's shelf above the and places it in his bards arms. He takes Jaskier's cherished finery, now nothing more than a few rings, a brooch, a golden copy of the wolf school. _Their ring,_ that one he slips onto the chain with his own medallion, gold accompanying silver. The Witcher delivers a final kiss to his wrinkled brow before he forces himself to leave, knowing he could stay there until he was lost to hunger if he didnt.

Standing beneath the starlight, he throws Igni again and again at their cottage, _at their home_ , until the blaze is lighting up the night sky, sending the body of his greatest love to rise with the embers to the skies, like a phoenix freed. Geralt is screaming again with each blast, with rage and sorrow and heartache pain. There is nothing but ash when the sun rises once more. A hot summer wind picks up, scattering it in a cloud of grey with a noise of grief he pockets the pouch of memories within his armor, close to his heart.

It was time to return to the path

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on Tumblr!](https://liathlining.tumblr.com/)


End file.
